1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a device, in which the device is manufactured by discharging material in liquid form against a substrate from a liquid drop discharge head.
2. Background Art
In the past, a color filter has been used for a liquid crystal display device. The color filter is made as one unit with the liquid crystal display device, and is endowed with the functions of enhancing the picture quality and of imparting to each picture element a hue of a respective primary color. As methods for manufacturing this type of color filter, there are known a method (a dyeing method) of forming a pattern by hardening illuminated portions by illuminating light via a photo-mask onto a painted on layer of photosensitive resin, and thereafter removing the portions of the painted on layer which have not been irradiated by light so as to perform a development process, and then dyeing it; or a photolithographic method of manufacturing the color filter by using in series compounds in which red colored, green colored, and blue colored dyes are dispersed in a photosensitive resin and, in the same manner as above, forming a painted on layer, illuminating it with light, and performing development processing. These methods invite deterioration of the workability and increase of the manufacturing cost, since various processes such as a film formation process, a photolithographic process, a development process, and the like are required.
On the other hand, as a method of manufacturing a color filter, there is a method of forming the color filter layer of a color filter by using a liquid drop discharge head. With this method it is possible to reduce the manufacturing cost, since it is easy to control the positions in which are discharged the liquid drops of the material in liquid form (ink) which includes the material for formation of the color filter layer, and also the wastage of the material is low.
With a liquid drop discharge head, it is desirable from the point of view of manufacturability to utilize a multi nozzle head which is equipped with a plurality of discharge nozzles which discharge liquid drops. However, the picture element pitch (the pattern pitch) of the color filter and the nozzle interval “a” of the liquid drop discharge head will not necessarily agree with one another. Due to this, in order to make the nozzle interval and the pattern pitch agree with one another, a technique has been disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying Open Publication Heisei 9-300664 for performing scanning while tilting the liquid drop discharge head by just a predetermined angle θ with respect to the direction which is orthogonal to the scanning direction (hereinafter, appropriately, this will be termed the “non-scanning direction”).
Furthermore, with regard to the patterns for forming by liquid drop discharge, it is unusual for them to be used independently by themselves; it often happens that they realize their function in combination with other thin film patterns which are formed before or after them by photolithography or the like. In this sort of case, independently of whether or not the patterning accuracy due to photolithography is comparatively better than the patterning accuracy obtained due to liquid drop discharge, up till now, during the design of a pattern to be formed by photolithography, the nozzle pitch of the discharge device has been accorded no consideration whatsoever. Due to this problems occur as described previously, and things such as scanning while tilting the head have been performed, and due to this it has not been possible to perform discharge of a pattern at good efficency, even when using a head equipped with a plurality of nozzles.
However, problems arise with the above described background technique, as will be described below.
Although with the above described publicly disclosed technique it is possible to make the pattern pitch by in the non-scanning direction and the nozzle pitch in the non-scanning direction agree with one another, there are problems with making pattern pitch bx in the scanning direction and the nozzle pitch in the scanning direction agree with one another. This is because, although the pattern pitch by in the non-scanning direction and a·cos θ which is the nozzle pitch in the non-scanning direction have an integer ratio to one another, the pattern pitch bx in the scanning direction and a·sin θ which is the nozzle pitch in the scanning direction do not, realistically, have an integer ratio to one another.
On the other hand although, even when the liquid drop discharge head is tilted, it becomes possible to discharge the liquid drops in the predetermined positions in the scanning direction by adjusting the respective timings at which the liquid drops are discharged from each of the discharge nozzles, there is a requirement to make the control interval for discharge operation of the discharge nozzles in the scanning direction very fine, and this invites decrease of the scanning speed and complication of the control, and the manufacturability is deteriorated.
When manufacturing a color filter using the liquid drop discharge head, even if, by providing banks upon the surface which receives the discharge, it is arranged that the liquid drops are discharged in the desired discharge positions with only small deviations, the liquid drops are forced into the desired positions by the operation of the banks. However, since it only happens infrequently that banks are used when forming a wiring pattern using a liquid drop discharge head, for example, if it is attempted to form a wiring pattern of straight line form in the non-scanning direction, there is a requirement to make the control interval for discharge operation in the scanning direction very fine, as described above, and this invites deterioration of manufacturability.